PERFECT PITCH

A deal that went askew briefly has given plenty of mileage to car dealership owner Greg Santo.

Since then, the slogan “Ask for me, not my dad” has become a staple of radio commercials for Santo Lincoln-Mercury Volvo in Moosic.

Business owners are making themselves more visible to their prospective consumers, and it’s worked perfectly for Santo throughout the years. He is a regular on the radio and cut a new television commercial for use during the current NCAA basketball tournament.

“I believe it helps the image of the dealership a lot when you have your face out there,” Santo said. “We’re kind of a hometown place. I’m here all the time. It’s not like we’re owned by a big corporation.

“It adds a sense of comfort when you’re dealing with the deciding factor, I guess you can say.”

As for the catch phrase, it started many, many years ago when Santo was a salesman at the dealership then owned by his father. The much-abbreviated version of the story is his father didn’t approve of a deal Santo gave a customer. The customer was going to back out, but Santo called him and smoothed out the situation.

“After that, all the guys this guy knew would come in and say ‘I want to see the son, not the father,’” Santo said. “That’s how it actually happened, but it’s a little more complicated than that.”

Simplicity was what Ron Thomas was looking for when he opened American Gold Buying Inc. at Valentine’s Jewelers in Dallas. While his approach was quite different, it yielded the same results.

“What it does is you’re not going to see a stranger,” Thomas said of appearing in his own commercials. “Even though they don’t really know me, they see me on TV and all of a sudden I’m in their living room. They walk in and say, ‘Oh yeah, I know this guy.’”

Thomas has three television commercials ranging from 30 seconds to three minutes. The latter is done in an infomercial format with Jane Adonizio of WOLF-TV Channel 56, where Thomas demonstrates the process of selling used or unwanted jewelry.

Having Adonizio act as host put Thomas at ease and reduced worry about his role in the commercial. Instead, he focuses on what American Gold Buying Inc. offers customers.

“It took my business from here to here,” said Thomas, raising his hand from chest level to over his head. “When we have people come in, we ask them how they’ve heard of us. They say they saw us on TV. The last gentleman that was here was from Scranton. Saw us on TV.”

Radio and television aren’t the only places business owners have placed their faces on their product. Sometimes a few words in a newspaper advertisement can do the same.

Attorney Jonathan A. Spohrer discovered that with his “A Different Kind of Lawyer” print ads.

Spohrer is in practice by himself in Kingston and was seeking a way to separate his specialty – estate planning, estate documents and municipal work – from other lawyers. Other attorneys and law firms advertising at the time centered on medical malpractice and personal injury.

So Spohrer sat down with Clare Parkhurst, owner of Blacksheep Advertising in Dallas, to develop a strategy that could concisely explain his business.

“We kept talking and I said, ‘You know, I’m really a different kind of lawyer than the normal lawyer who advertises,’” Spohrer said. “And she slammed her hand down on the table and said ‘That’s it. You are a different kind of lawyer.’ I told her that’s what I just said and she said ‘No, no, no, that’s going to be your tagline.’

The run has gone very well, especially since Spohrer was told putting his picture with those few words was the right approach.

“I was advised by my advertising people that you have to put your face out there,” Spohrer said. “You’re not a big-name law firm. You have to tell the people ‘This is who I am. Please, let me help you.’”

Yet, there is a delicate balance between owner and product that needs to be meshed properly. Scott Cannon, owner of Video Innovations in Plymouth, has produced several commercials for television and another growing medium – the Internet.

“The benefit of having somebody on a commercial is that it gives the consumer a person to relate to and it always makes that person an instant expert in their field,” said Cannon, who has been involved in commercial production for about 25 years. “If somebody is talking about a certain product, in the consumer’s mind that person becomes an expert in that product or that field.”

The potential pitfall, Cannon said, is a business owner who looks uncomfortable, a factor that could detract from the product. Cannon likes to meet with the prospective advertiser to decide which approach is the best.